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Highway Robbery!

REPEALED RS2477 STATUTE THREATENS NATIONAL PARKS, NATIONAL MONUMENTS, WILDERNESS AND OTHER PUBLIC LANDS NATIONWIDE

NEW "DISCLAIMER REGULATIONS" REVIVE AND HEIGHTEN THREAT

On January 6, 2003, Interior Secretary Gale Norton issued new "disclaimer regulations," allowing the administration to give away property interest in federal conservation lands. The new rule opens the door for states, counties and even individuals to file thousands of unsubstantiated claims, for the right-of-way to construct highways across our national parks, refuges and other public lands. The federal government will in turn "disclaim" any interest, essentially doing nothing to dispute claims. Compounding the offense is that the Department of the Interior still does not have standards to assess the validity of these bogus "highway" claims.

WHY IS THIS BAD FOR CALIFORNIA?

In California, an increasing number of bogus road claims have been asserted over the past couple years, many of them in environmentally sensitive and protected areas such as Death Valley National Park, Joshua Tree National Park, Mojave National Preserve and Giant Sequoia National Monument, and many designated wilderness areas. These claims also pose a significant threat to public lands overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). These are places that the American public and US Congress have seen fit to protect in a pristine state in order to sustain the wild ecosystems, plant and animal species, habitat, and water resources they harbor. Proposed RS 2477 routes threaten to permanently scar our last wild places and extinguish their ecological and intrinsic values.

San Bernardino County plans to move forward with nearly 5,000 miles of claims (over twice its currently maintained road inventory of 2,341 miles), despite liabilities and astronomical costs that will inevitably be incurred. By the county’s own calculation, 967 miles of its RS 2477 routes are, in fact, claimed in designated wilderness areas. Of these miles, 722 crisscross Mojave National Preserve Wilderness. And more than 300 miles have been claimed in areas proposed for wilderness designation in the California Wild Heritage Act. For more information of this threat to California’s wild places visit http://www.calwild.org/campaigns/rs2477.php.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY!

THERE ARE THREE THINGS YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW TO STOP THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION FROM CARVING UP YOUR PUBLIC LANDS WITH THOUSANDS OF UNNECESSARY ROADS.

1) Write a letter to your member of Congress. Briefly explain the R.S. 2477 threat and ask your representative to sign Rep. Mark Udall's congressional letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton urging her not to process R.S. 2477 claims. To take immediate action online, go to http://capwiz.com/awc/issues/alert/?alertid=1772106.

2) Make phones ring off the hook on Capitol Hill. Be one of thousands who call Congress on National Call-In Day, this APRIL 8th, against the R.S. 2477 public lands giveaway. Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202)224-3121, request your representative's office, and ask him/her to sign onto the Udall letter. Ask enthusiastic offices to write THEIR OWN letter. Above all, urge your representative to demand that Secretary Norton NOT process RS2477 claims under the new "disclaimer rule."

3) Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. These letters shape public opinion and are read daily by decision-makers. Go to http://capwiz.com/awc/issues/alert/?alertid=1769501 to electronically send your letter to area newspapers.